The car seat creaked dangerously as the hairdresser settled into it. A deep sigh of flimsy metal put under far, far too much stress echoed throughout the structure of the vehicle. What did he expect? In the new state of America Magna all manufactures were produced in the great factory complexes of occupied Mexico. The oppressed population of that country, forever living in the shadow of the great walls which criss-crossed that benighted land, seemed to take some perverse pleasure in deliberately churning out poor quality vehicles. At least that’s what Fox and Breitbart said these days (the last rogue CNN contributor having long since been apprehended).

Ted, for that was this hairdresser’s name, pulled out of the parking lot onto the Grandfather Drumpf memorial highway. Highway was perhaps a rather kind way of describing this misbegotten patch of road. It had been built by the Consortium of United National Trumpians, a well known paper shell for El Rey de Mexico’s expansive business interests. As the engine stuttered, Ted glanced sadly at the ruins of the Donald Trump Monument, still smouldering from the terrorist attacks of the Californian Freedom Movement – it seemed such a shame to him that these strange people couldn’t see the truth of what the Donald had brought to his delighted nation. These days all that could be seen of the obelisk were the letters ‘T R U’, defiling the great man’s name which had been so proudly emblazoned across it. As he moved further down he looked somewhat mournfully at the remains of the Capitol. When the great leader had ascended to his throne not only had he quickly disbanded the ‘Main-Stream Politicians’ who had dared to resist him, he had also taken most of the structural supports of the building to erect on the top of the ‘Donald Trump White House’ (it was actually a strange shade of orange). Now all that remained were a few romantic ruins, bedecked in Pepe the Frog graffiti.

Passing a convoy of police tanks, Ted pulled up at Trump Tower 2 (The President always had to have the biggest tower, the best, one that was better than anyone else’s) and pulled off his gloves. It still seemed strange to him that all citizens were required to wear gloves several inches thick, designed to emphasise the great size of their hands. He knew though that if he wore them while cutting the Leader’s hair he might make a mistake again. Clumsiness was not easily forgiven in America Magna.

He stepped into the tower, it still struck him how deferential the crowds were, shuffling in great queues to gain the slightest glimpse of the dear leader. He skirted round the back as he always did, to the secret door at the back of the display case.

The leader was sitting there, as he always did, looking as if he were in mid speech. In the background a radio played a repeated snorting noise, a sound comfortingly familiar to all who watched the compulsory replays of the debates which had led to the kind leader’s rise to power. His fingers were pinched and posed as always, the leader seemed to be contemplating his next attack on the manipulative enemies of America.

Ted carefully lifted up the wig and put it on the stand. He knew by now that he would have to work quickly. First the spray, then the scissors. He set to work on the hair, a snip here, a trim there. Finally, stepping back, he admired his masterpiece. It amazed him how over the course of the last 30 years his careful substitution and manipulation of this headpiece had kept the whole of America convinced that Donald Trump was still a vibrant, forceful young premier. No matter that his speeches were now strung together from old recording and the strident braying of the ‘all nu Donald Trump imitating Donkey’. No matter that his physical form only existed as a wax effigy adored by thousands on a daily basis. The slowly mutating blond combover convinced everyone that the leader remained the potent force he always had been.

Of course there were some who wanted to put an end to Ted’s silent loyalty to the leader. All the actual power these days was wielded by his son, Barron Trump, and his wife, Chelsea Trump-Clinton (if you can’t stop them running against you in elections, dynastically involve them in your power structure…). They wanted him out. They wanted him gone. But Ted was happy, he liked his job, it gave him purpose.

Red: Liam Astle

Why should we reform our current voting system? Looking at first past the post, an electoral system in which the person with the most votes wins the seat, the flaws within the system are fairly evident and are most clear when it comes to the 2015 election. Under the current electoral system, you don’t need to have the majority of the country supporting you in order to form a government—the Conservative Party won a 51% of the seats in the Commons, with only 37% of votes. By definition, the will of the people is misrepresented if a party forms a majority government without a majority of the votes.

In the same way that a government doesn’t require the support of the majority of voters, nor does a member of Parliament need the support of a majority of their constituency. Take Alasdair McDonnell in Belfast South: a Social Democratic and Labour Party MP, who was elected on 24.5% of the vote last year, holding the UK record for the lowest share of the vote in any constituency. Do we really believe this is sufficiently representative of the voters of Belfast South?

Then there’s the inevitable factor of tactical voting. Surely, in a modern democracy, a voter should be free to express their democratic choice in the candidate they most believe in, rather than the candidate they disagree with the least. Democracy should be the people expressing their will, not being forced to make a choice for the convenience of two big parties.

So, if these are the problems with first past the post, what’s the solution? First, there’s the possibility of replacing the current system with the alternative vote, which would allow for the most continuity. The current electoral map would be retained, with constituencies remaining the same in size and makeup, but due to the ranked ballot voting system, people would be free to express their choices and vote per their will. There’s also the knock-on effect of safe seats becoming far less safe and allowing for greater representation for smaller parties, thereby better representing the voters. However, due to AV being a majoritarian system, there can still be cases of the people’s will being misrepresented in the overall seat makeup of the Commons, though it would avoid the constant coalitions we’d see under a proportional representation system.

Moreover, electing the Upper Chamber under the single transferable vote (STV) would allow for a greater democratisation of the system, resulting in direct proportional representation of our regions. STV would be more appropriate for representing regions instead of individual constituencies, since the system relies on bigger constituencies to elect representatives. This would ultimately allow for greater representation of small parties, better representation for our regions and nations, and for a much more democratic system, with both voting systems being tailored to the needs of the respective Houses of Parliament.

Blue: Altair Brandon-Salmon

One of the great tragedies of Western foreign policy since the Second World War has been the assumption that if certain governmental structures work in your country, then they will work in someone else’s too. This seductive but foolhardy notion, which has all too frequently resulted in costly wars abroad, also underpins arguments over electoral reform. Proponents point to countries such as Australia, Belgium and Norway as nations which employ proportional voting systems and claim those successes can and should be translated into our political system, replacing first past the post (FPTP). Yet this seems to iron out the differences between countries, as though the wants and needs of the electorates in these diverse countries are the same. We need to recognise that different democracies have different demands.

It’s striking that, of the liberal democratic permanent member countries of the UN Security Council, all three, the UK, US and France, have majoritarian systems like FPTP for elections. When we turn to the world’s 10 largest economies, of the nine which democracies (China being the non-democracy), five use FPTP. So, when we compare the democratic world powers in terms of political and economic influence and size, we can see FPTP has been a wide-reaching success. This utilitarian argument is seldom made when discussing electoral reform. Critics would challenge that correlation does not equal causality, and at any rate, if we pursue a utilitarian strategy, should we emulate China, as it has been an undoubted global success despite its oppressive political system?

While it would be foolish to claim that the UK or US are amongst the largest economies due to their voting systems, we should also observe that in the Anglo-sphere, the countries which are the most successful, like the UK, US or Canada, all embrace a majoritarian system. To claim what works in Japan will smoothly function in the UK seems to utterly ignore the crucial variances which exist amongst democracies. One of the main virtues FPTP delivers and which is prized by the British electorate is a strong, majority government, ruling with the checks and balances provided by a well-organised opposition. The presence of minor parties like the SNP, Liberal Democrats, UKIP and the Greens in Parliament ensure a plurality of views are represented without having undue influence, while extremist parties such as the BNP are shut out entirely. The standard single-party government is able to deliver a coherent policy platform, without the dilution and paralysis that we see in multi-party governments in Italy and Belgium. Those who would argue a government needs 50% +1 of the vote to be entirely legitimate ignore that the British electorate expect their government to be strong and dynamic on the global stage, delivering economic and foreign policies that ensure the UK maintains its international status. None of these priorities would be as well achieved under a coalition government which is the inevitable result of a proportional electoral system. For the UK to remain one of the leading democracies, we need an electoral system which creates a government able to meet the priorities of the body politic, making it crucial to keep FPTP.